I'm sure some democrat political strategist has realized that gun policy is an overall losing tack for Democrats, yet none have ever acted on it. Democrats using guns as a wedge issue has been a loser again and again. Those who would cheer at further restrictions were already voting straight ticket anyway. Very few democrat politicians are even allowed to be pro-gun, as that threatens the ideological purity of the party (or at least that's how it feels) despite it not being a pushbutton issue for many reliable democrat voters.
I have said before and will maintain that if Democrats simply remove gun restrictions and bans from their official party platform, and discourage members from pushing aggressive legislation, a neutral stance should be adequate, they would win enough votes from moderate gun owners and eliminate enough single issue counter-votes that they could be political dominant for the foreseeable future. (At least until the Republicans re-align a bit more to the center, which could be a while)
Yes, like you, David, I grew up i]n an ostensibly liberal Democrat family. It seems like a 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' question; did the Democrats go gun control uber alles, or did the GOP go pro gun owner first? I'm old enough to remember pro-gun, Cold War Democrats like John Kennedy (an NRA Life Member) and Scoop Jackson, not to mention gun control supporting Republicans. Like many working class voters (culturally, if not by education), it isn't just gun control that's pushing me away from voting Democrat.
As someone who spends a good big of time in rural areas, particularly economically depressed ones, I see the Trump flags and I feel the resentment. Someone coming in and saying “I am your retribution” is much more appealing than “basket of deplorables.” Having only 2 more expensive dolls instead of 20 is a non-issue when you’re trying to pay bills. And so on. I don’t think the solution on offer is a solution, but I can see why it’s appealing.
The stupidity behind that AWB meme is startling even to someone as politically jaded as me. Are there really tribes nodding along with that? Only the willfully ignorant could look at human history -- ISIS, Rwanda, every war ever -- and conclude weapons bans will work out OK for vulnerable populations.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
As for guns and republicans, yes, I wish we could move past the two-party, first past the post, system in the US. Since guns are my personal litmus test (anyone wishing to disarm me wishes me no good), and game theory being what it is, the only viable option is to vote against the DNC.
True, and it sort of reinforces the idea that the NRA has no option but whoever is heading the Republican Party. That people talk about gun rights as "a proxy for individual liberty" and yet turn a blind eye to Trump's trampling of the same would be comical if not so dangerous.
Here in WA state, I voted for the Republican candidate for governor, Dave Reichert, in ‘24. As a self-identified liberal, I surprised myself in so doing. I don’t think I would have if there wasn’t a 99% chance the Democratic candidate, Bob Ferguson, would crush him.
Why vote for a candidate I knew would lose and who didn’t represent many of my values? I got tired of voting against my 2nd Amendment rights. I can now honestly tell my Democratic state legislators that their stance on guns changed my vote.
Fear not, there was never a chance of me casting a ballot for Orange Mussolini.
The Big Sort has turned WA into a one party state like so many states, and all the blue states are now in a horse race to enact the most restrictive, gun-owner-harassing regimes they can. CO may be currently leading by a nose, but the others will make it neck-and-neck again very soon.
I used to think quotations like Mr. Edwards’s verged on tin foil hat stuff, but no longer. As a friend told me-“The slippery slope fallacy ain’t a fallacy when you can point to the Crisco-coated incline.”
Two of the most maddening things for me: 1) As your meme indicates, the side that’s going to be victimized self-disarming in the face of creeping (or is it galloping?) fascism is madness, and 2) As Matt Yglesias-no fan of guns or the 2nd Amendment-recently pointed out here on Substack in an article about “dog-whistle moderation:” while Democrats are popping champagne corks over their gun control successes on their home turf, and reanimating the zombie assault weapons ban in the Senate, they are shooting themselves in their electoral faces in the purple and red districts they will need in order to seize the national levers of power in the Senate and White House.
The Californian in me feels your pain. I get so many negative responses to my work on guns from the kind of people who enable blue state politicians to do what they're doing, I'm pretty well at a loss as to what to do about it.
"women’s bodily autonomy" is just the focus group name for "pro-abortion." It tests a lot better. Just like "gun violence" sounds better than "gun control."
The Democrats are the party of misdirection. They can't plainly say what they're for or they won't get the votes. Their positions are extreme in many cases.
In the past few years, the Republicans have done a much better job of exposing their hypocrisy with good results.
Gun rights are a proxy for individual liberty to me and many others.
The Democrats value "bodily autonomy" under limited circumstances.
Object to the COVID vaccine? You don't have to look too hard to find Leftist Pols supported by Leftist entertainers clamoring for you to be completely ostracized from civil society. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his statement "F- your freedom" sums that up nicely. This was true even as the known effectiveness of the vaccines were plummeting from the early reported 100% to "we never said the vaccinated couldn't get the disease.
Now, you can make exactly the same complaint against the Right.
I have said for years that there is little to choose from between the 2 major parties. Both want to control my life, just in different ways.
I am not privy to any focus group data. I specifically use that term because people I know in the gun community value bodily autonomy highly. So I use it to highlight the tension between having guns to ensure bodily autonomy and supporting laws that undermine it.
Additionally, if you see hypocrisy only in Democrats and not in Republicans, you've drunk too much of the partisan Kool-Aid.
I don't know if they used focus groups, but the purposeful avoidance of the term "gun control' is not an accident. I expect it's the same for "women's bodily autonomy." I understand and accept your use of the term. "Bodily autonomy" can extend to forced vaccination, etc. Sorry, I did not mean to offend you in any way. You are an honest broker.
Yes, there is hypocrisy on both sides. National carry reciprocity doesn't exactly mesh with states'.
Just because a short comment on the internet doesn't mention Trump in the negative doesn't mean the commenter is all in on what his administration is doing.
The post, for example, was about why the DNC is not a viable option to most gun owners. So it shouldn't be a surprise the DNC's failings, rather than Trump's, are the focus of many comments here.
I'm sure some democrat political strategist has realized that gun policy is an overall losing tack for Democrats, yet none have ever acted on it. Democrats using guns as a wedge issue has been a loser again and again. Those who would cheer at further restrictions were already voting straight ticket anyway. Very few democrat politicians are even allowed to be pro-gun, as that threatens the ideological purity of the party (or at least that's how it feels) despite it not being a pushbutton issue for many reliable democrat voters.
I have said before and will maintain that if Democrats simply remove gun restrictions and bans from their official party platform, and discourage members from pushing aggressive legislation, a neutral stance should be adequate, they would win enough votes from moderate gun owners and eliminate enough single issue counter-votes that they could be political dominant for the foreseeable future. (At least until the Republicans re-align a bit more to the center, which could be a while)
No major disagreement from me here.
Sometimes the only bus going anywhere near where you want to go is not a very nice bus, but all the others are worse, or broken.
Super analogy,
Yes, like you, David, I grew up i]n an ostensibly liberal Democrat family. It seems like a 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' question; did the Democrats go gun control uber alles, or did the GOP go pro gun owner first? I'm old enough to remember pro-gun, Cold War Democrats like John Kennedy (an NRA Life Member) and Scoop Jackson, not to mention gun control supporting Republicans. Like many working class voters (culturally, if not by education), it isn't just gun control that's pushing me away from voting Democrat.
As someone who spends a good big of time in rural areas, particularly economically depressed ones, I see the Trump flags and I feel the resentment. Someone coming in and saying “I am your retribution” is much more appealing than “basket of deplorables.” Having only 2 more expensive dolls instead of 20 is a non-issue when you’re trying to pay bills. And so on. I don’t think the solution on offer is a solution, but I can see why it’s appealing.
The stupidity behind that AWB meme is startling even to someone as politically jaded as me. Are there really tribes nodding along with that? Only the willfully ignorant could look at human history -- ISIS, Rwanda, every war ever -- and conclude weapons bans will work out OK for vulnerable populations.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
As for guns and republicans, yes, I wish we could move past the two-party, first past the post, system in the US. Since guns are my personal litmus test (anyone wishing to disarm me wishes me no good), and game theory being what it is, the only viable option is to vote against the DNC.
I can't fault you.
Adding to the irony is that Trump himself is not truly what anyone should call a second amendment advocate.
True, and it sort of reinforces the idea that the NRA has no option but whoever is heading the Republican Party. That people talk about gun rights as "a proxy for individual liberty" and yet turn a blind eye to Trump's trampling of the same would be comical if not so dangerous.
Here in WA state, I voted for the Republican candidate for governor, Dave Reichert, in ‘24. As a self-identified liberal, I surprised myself in so doing. I don’t think I would have if there wasn’t a 99% chance the Democratic candidate, Bob Ferguson, would crush him.
Why vote for a candidate I knew would lose and who didn’t represent many of my values? I got tired of voting against my 2nd Amendment rights. I can now honestly tell my Democratic state legislators that their stance on guns changed my vote.
Fear not, there was never a chance of me casting a ballot for Orange Mussolini.
The Big Sort has turned WA into a one party state like so many states, and all the blue states are now in a horse race to enact the most restrictive, gun-owner-harassing regimes they can. CO may be currently leading by a nose, but the others will make it neck-and-neck again very soon.
I used to think quotations like Mr. Edwards’s verged on tin foil hat stuff, but no longer. As a friend told me-“The slippery slope fallacy ain’t a fallacy when you can point to the Crisco-coated incline.”
Two of the most maddening things for me: 1) As your meme indicates, the side that’s going to be victimized self-disarming in the face of creeping (or is it galloping?) fascism is madness, and 2) As Matt Yglesias-no fan of guns or the 2nd Amendment-recently pointed out here on Substack in an article about “dog-whistle moderation:” while Democrats are popping champagne corks over their gun control successes on their home turf, and reanimating the zombie assault weapons ban in the Senate, they are shooting themselves in their electoral faces in the purple and red districts they will need in order to seize the national levers of power in the Senate and White House.
The Californian in me feels your pain. I get so many negative responses to my work on guns from the kind of people who enable blue state politicians to do what they're doing, I'm pretty well at a loss as to what to do about it.
"women’s bodily autonomy" is just the focus group name for "pro-abortion." It tests a lot better. Just like "gun violence" sounds better than "gun control."
The Democrats are the party of misdirection. They can't plainly say what they're for or they won't get the votes. Their positions are extreme in many cases.
In the past few years, the Republicans have done a much better job of exposing their hypocrisy with good results.
Gun rights are a proxy for individual liberty to me and many others.
The Democrats value "bodily autonomy" under limited circumstances.
Object to the COVID vaccine? You don't have to look too hard to find Leftist Pols supported by Leftist entertainers clamoring for you to be completely ostracized from civil society. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his statement "F- your freedom" sums that up nicely. This was true even as the known effectiveness of the vaccines were plummeting from the early reported 100% to "we never said the vaccinated couldn't get the disease.
Now, you can make exactly the same complaint against the Right.
I have said for years that there is little to choose from between the 2 major parties. Both want to control my life, just in different ways.
Very well said.
I am not privy to any focus group data. I specifically use that term because people I know in the gun community value bodily autonomy highly. So I use it to highlight the tension between having guns to ensure bodily autonomy and supporting laws that undermine it.
Additionally, if you see hypocrisy only in Democrats and not in Republicans, you've drunk too much of the partisan Kool-Aid.
I don't know if they used focus groups, but the purposeful avoidance of the term "gun control' is not an accident. I expect it's the same for "women's bodily autonomy." I understand and accept your use of the term. "Bodily autonomy" can extend to forced vaccination, etc. Sorry, I did not mean to offend you in any way. You are an honest broker.
Yes, there is hypocrisy on both sides. National carry reciprocity doesn't exactly mesh with states'.
states' rights.
Just because a short comment on the internet doesn't mention Trump in the negative doesn't mean the commenter is all in on what his administration is doing.
The post, for example, was about why the DNC is not a viable option to most gun owners. So it shouldn't be a surprise the DNC's failings, rather than Trump's, are the focus of many comments here.
It wasn't the failure to mention but the one-sidedness that I objected to.